There‘s a wall at TKF Tumanyan Khinkali Factory in Glendale that’s an impressive and deeply touching history of Armenia, with documents, photos and drawings of the Old Country, lovingly framed and lit, a display of the land from which the remarkable food at TKF comes.

I’m glad it’s there. For otherwise, TKF is a handsome room with a full bar, in which Italian food could just as easily be served. But one glance at the menu, and it’s clear this isn’t an Italian restaurant. It’s not just a fine Armenian restaurant. It’s an Armenian restaurant built around its namesake dish, a steroidal dumpling called khinkali.

Now, interestingly, khinkali is actually a Georgian dish, something you’d be likely to encounter on a vacation to Tbilisi. But here it is, in an Armenian restaurant, found down an alleyway in the midst of Glendale’s Armenian community, served to pretty much everyone who goes there, along with a small assortment of both Armenian and Russian dishes. As ever, food does not know national boundaries. Dishes travel as they wish, without passports or visas.

TKF is actually an unexpectedly upscale restaurant, at least in look, though the prices are as casual as could be. There are tablecloths, an amenity not often found at deeply ethnic restaurants. The napkins on the plates are folded with care. The bar, as I said, offers the usual range of cocktails, along with beers and wines. Though my drink of choice was the house yogurt, unsweetened with a sediment of chopped cucumber on the bottom. You drink it with a straw and then with a spoon.

Not surprisingly, there are mysteries here. When you sit down, a bowl of garbanzo beans arrives, along with another bowl of tiny croutons, that seems to have the same purpose as pretzels. They’re just there to be nibbled, possibly with the charcuterie platter, a combination of well-spiced dried beef called basturma and its cousin, the beef sausage called sujukh.

There’s another beef served as an appetizer, with the colorful name ghavurma — long, slow-cooked beef, fried in butter, and served cold, a bit like a terrine at a French country inn. Only different.

You’ll recognize the crispy, crunchy pickles on the vegetable medley: cukes, cabbage, tomatoes, cauliflower, carrots, all transformed with brine. You’ll recognize the cheese plate less so: chanakh is a bit like a spicy feta, saltier and served both plain and herb crusted, with radishes and tomatoes. The dolma are a surprise, for they’re not only made with grape leaves, but with stuffed peppers as well. There are marinated mushrooms, and mixed olives. This is a cuisine that likes its salt. But it likes its stuffed things even more.

They begin with the blinchik (which sounds like something an Armenian grandmother would call a beloved grandchild), tiny crepes stuffed with your choice of ground beef and walnuts, or mushrooms. The pileli soup swims with mini pelmeni, small Russian dumplings packed with ground beef that you’ll need to compete for if you opt to share dishes.

There are bigger pelmeni as well, served as an entrée. But mostly there’s khinkali, the dumplings of song and fable. It’s a funny looking thing, a bit like an old fashioned purse, or maybe a hot water bottle with a bulbous lower region and a ridged topknot that’s more than a bit chewy. You can pick up the khinkali by the topknot, but that won’t keep the lower soup and meat filled bag from collapsing, just like the soup dumplings at the nearby Din Tai Fung.

They cost $2.50 a piece, and you’ll want a handful of them, for the khinkali are an obsession worth having. They come filled with ground beef, a Georgian cheese called suluguni (also known as “pickle cheese), or spinach and mushrooms. You probably want at least one and maybe two of each. And with them, you want a wonderfully named side dish called ich, something akin to tabouli but made with finer bulghur and flavored with tomato and spices.

The first bite is a revelation. If you’ve had tabouli through your life, you’ll be shocked by how good this prep is. And to return for a moment to the blinchiks, they’re also served as a dessert, stuffed with cottage cheese and raisins.

As you leave, go past the wall of memory and say a word of thanks. This food is worth the trip there — and certainly here.